Superior Listening Comprehension in French (How to get there?)
steve

One more thing that I forgot. With your level in French you also need to speak a lot. If you have a tutor, get him or her to give you a google doc with your mistakes and phrases that cause you trouble for you to import into LingQ. This will make your listening and reading more effective, give it more resonance.
[David2018]

Thanks Steve:
I love suggestion No. 5. This is a very smart idea.
I have a subscription to Le Monde Diplomatique, and they read out some of the articles. The audio quality is through the roof. So, I will be importing the articles into Lingq and making use of my flash cards. (I tend to not use flash cards for WORDS, I use them for phrases, mostly.)
François Fillon just gave a speech today, and the text of the speech was uploaded online, so I'll be working with that.
And I have a great audio book, which I'll try to work my way through.
Thanks again - I'll keep you posted.
steve

Good luck and trust yourself. Mostly enjoy the process.
[David2018]

Forgot to ask you this .... is there a recommended number of hours you would suggest I listen to French, as a minimum? Of course I may do more, but let's say I'm in a crunch. I'll know to get in at least X many hours.
Just curious.
Thx.
steve

You should be so keen to listen that you take advantage of every opportunity, while doing other tasks. In general, though, at least an hour a day. The more the better.
[David2018]

Got it. Thanks again!
MatDeris

Steve, does listening while doing other tasks work? I heard you should pay attention while listening so you can improve, and if just listening while doing other tasks, then you won't benefit, how correct is that please?
Because if it helps, then I probably can listen more than 6 hours a day!
louise_steele

I listen when I do chores not associated with my verbal or math skills, gardening, knitting, chopping vegetables cleaning etc. If I have to do something else, such as reading a recipe I turn off my mp3 player so I don't miss anything from my lessons. This works well for me.
steve

I am like Louise. I concentrate better when doing other tasks, as opposed to just sitting and listening. It depends on the task. Easier to do when cleaning up, a little more difficult when cooking.
niek1337

I listen a lot while playing Fifa 2017 and I still make progress (at least that's what I think)
conycatcher

I'd be interested how things turned out for David.
MatDeris

Steve, may I ask
How many hours should one listen until to start to feel can listen to almost everything? And how many hours usually for reading "everything being equal with you"?
Please give me a specific number from your experience!
Thank you
[DrewPeacock]

Thousands.
steve

If you enjoy your listening it shouldn't matter. I think that hundreds of hours, perhaps thousands, but I don't keep track.
steve

1) First of all, you can improve a lot in 2 months, so relax. The more relaxed and confident you are, the more you enjoy your listening and reading, the better you will do.
2) It is quite effective to listen to and read different content on similar subjects. Do a lot of both. Do it out of interest, and to enjoy the content. If you find listening content that you like, and where you like the voice, listen more than once.
3) It is often useful to latch onto longer content, an audio book, say about history or current events, for which you have the etext. You can then import the book into Ling and save the audio to your mp3 player or smart phone. If you like the voice and content matter it is often helpful to get continued dosage of a comfortable range of content matter and voice and intonation.
4) Where possible find texts with audio or audio with texts, so that you can look up what you are missing. This is not necessary but often helpful.
5) Whenever listening or reading, try to focus on phrases or terms that you have just discovered, or just noticed. This kind of helps the brain retain things.
Most of all enjoy and trust that you will improve, and improve a lot more than you think is possible, even though you don't notice this improvement every day.
As for being close yet far away, we always feel that way, as our level improves and our expectations rise, like Tantalus of Phrygia.